You Can Lead a Parker to Water
by Lear's Daughter
Summary: ...But You Can't Keep Her From Blowing Up The Stream. You'd think by now they'd know that Parker just doesn't think the way they do. Set in late Season 2 and after the Season 2 finale.


Disclaimer: I don't own _Leverage_.

* * *

They're sitting at the bar, playing Easiest Mark—Eliot thinks it's the hot brunette in the corner, but Parker's putting a solid hundred down on the underage kid who's been nursing a rum and coke in the corner for the past hour—when Tara says, "What's your favorite part about working as a team?"

Eliot takes a sip of beer.

Hardison tilts his head. "What do you mean?"

Tara smiles a little, the way she does whenever she looks at the three of them (plus Nate) as if they're a puzzle she's having trouble solving—which is most of the time. She's been a member of the team for a few weeks now and hasn't been adjusting all that well. "Well, I mean, you all used to work alone, right? Being part of a team must be quite the adjustment."

"I like having people to do the hands on, physical part of the job," Hardison says, gesticulating with his beer bottle and grinning at Parker.

Eliot glares at his drink. "Helping people," he grunts.

Tara nods. The three of them look at Parker.

"What?" she says.

Eliot's eyes sort of twitch, like he wants to roll them but is restraining himself.

"What do you like most about being part of the team?" Hardison asks, his voice hopeful.

She hums, tapping her lip with her finger. "Dinner," she says.

There's a beat of silence. Then Eliot bursts out, as if he just can't contain himself, "_What_?"

She shrugs. "I used to eat alone. Now I don't have to. It's nice."

* * *

On a given week, Parker will eat with at least one member of her team at least three times.

The whole team eats at Nate's place every Saturday when they're not on the job. Eliot cooks, using ingredients from his own garden, while Nate picks out the wine and Hardison chooses the music. Sophie usually entertains Parker while they wait for the food to be ready—Parker can be inadvertently destructive if left to her own devices—such as by taking her up to Nate's room and rummaging through his closet, quizzing Parker on what each article of clothing says about a man.

(For example: "Now, feel the cloth on these pajamas." "Oooh, they're soft." "Correct. What does that tell you about Nate?" "He doesn't need a girlfriend because he's got comfy clothes?")

Parker loves these team dinners. Especially now that they've gotten Nate out of prison. Team dinners without Nate had all turned into team moping sessions, which just weren't as fun.

Once a week, Parker has dinner with Nate. Well, if a bowl of cereal in Nate's apartment counts as dinner, which she thinks it does.

And, at least once a week, Parker will have dinner with one of her other teammates. Usually one of them will ask her, but if for some reason they forget, she'll prod them until someone agrees. (Not that they take all that much prodding. Hardison's made it very clear that he'd like to have dinner with her more than once a week, which seems kind of silly—what could they possibly have to talk about for that long?)

She's at an Italian restaurant with Hardison one evening when he gets nervous for some reason, stammering and dropping his fork.

Her eyes narrow. "What's wrong?"

He coughs. "Parker, there's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever get…lonely?"

"What do you mean?"

He swallows heavily, which is weird, since he hasn't touched his food or his water. "Being a thief—even on a team—well, it can be lonely. Sometimes. I mean, maybe not for you. But for me. You know? You do know, don't you?"

"Yes, sometimes I'm lonely," Parker says.

He smiles and slumps back in his chair, relieved for some reason she doesn't understand. "Good," he says. "That's good. I mean, not good for you, obviously, I mean, I don't want you to be lonely, but—"

"Hardison," she interrupts bluntly. "Where are you going with this?"

He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "I was thinking, there's an obvious way for two lonely people to make each other less lonely. They could…spend time together in a—a romantic setting. Together. Romantically."

It takes her a moment to understand what he's suggesting. "Oh." She blinks. "Oh!"

"You get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"I think it's a great idea," she says, nodding. Scheming.

Hardison laughs in delight and takes a bite of his linguini.

* * *

"I had a strange conversation with Hardison the other day."

Sophie's eyebrows rise and her lips twitch. "Oh?"

"What do you think of him?" Parker says casually.

"As a thief?"

Parker raises the menu so her face is completely blocked from Sophie's view, worried that the grifter might figure out where she's heading with this if she sees Parker's face. "As a…romantic interest."

Sophie doesn't reply at first. When she does, her voice is high with excitement. "A romantic interest! Finally. I thought he'd never ask."

Parker lowers the menu enough to peer over the top at the other woman. "So you think it's a good idea?"

"I think it's a great idea!" Sophie leans forward, nudging her coffee cup out of the way. "Listen, Parker, Hardison's a wonderful man. He's intelligent—if a bit unusually so—sweet, funny. And don't you think he's good looking?"

Parker drags the tip of her finger in a circle on the table. "I guess. I'm just a little surprised, you know? I always thought it would be Nate."

Sophie chokes on her coffee. "Nate?" she sputters.

"Don't you think Nate's handsome?" Parker asks, surprised by Sophie's reaction. "Sweet? Funny? Smart?"

"You know I do," Sophie says. "But, Parker, Hardison is much younger than Nate, and, well, not to hurt your feelings, but Hardison's clearly interested, and I just don't think that Nate is."

Parker doesn't know why Sophie thinks that would hurt her feelings. "So…Hardison," she says, testing the name and finding that it felt right. "I think he's a good choice."

Sophie beams.

* * *

"What do you look for in a woman?"

Eliot pauses in the act of bringing his burger to his mouth, sets it back down. "Why do you want to know?" he says suspiciously.

She drags a French fry through a glob of ketchup. "It's just something Hardison said. He got me thinking. You're the only one of us with an actual love life—at least, I assume you have a love life." She smiles secretively. "Although hopefully soon you won't be the only one."

He winces. "I don't want to know."

"Anyway, I need you to tell me: how do you find someone you can, you know, have a relationship with?"

He shifts on his chair. "I look for someone I have a lot in common with. Someone I can relate to. Someone I feel comfortable being around."

She nods, making a mental list. "So, someone about your age? A thief?"

"Doesn't have to be. I'm talking more about personality. Age, that don't matter so much."

"So, someone who's interested in the same things I'm interested in," she muses.

"Sure."

"Someone I feel comfortable with. So, someone I can trust?"

He bobs his head, takes a bite of his burger. "If you're talking long term, trust's essential." He swallows and a small smile flits across his lips. "Trust, and connection. Warmth. You don't always gotta agree with them, but you gotta respect them, and they you. They've gotta be able to take you by surprise sometimes, but they've also gotta be there when you need them."

Parker finishes her fries. "What do you think about Nate?"

He puts his burger down again and sighs. "What about Nate?"

"Do you think you have that kind of connection with him?"

He runs his hand through his hair, his eyes doing that thing where they sort of bug out of his head in a scary way. Fortunately, Parker's never intimidated by anyone under forty. It's not in her genetic makeup. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm just trying to understand. You trust Nate, don't you? And you respect him, and he respects you. He surprises us all the time. Whatever trouble he gets us into, he always gets us out."

"How on Earth did this conversation become about Nate?" Eliot demands.

Parker frowns. "It's not."

"Then why are we talking about him?"

"I was just trying to think of someone who met all your standards, that's all."

"And _Nate_ was the first person to pop into your head?"

"It was the thing you said, about finding someone you have a lot in common with."

Eliot doesn't ask what Parker and Nate could possibly have in common, apart from being on the same team. That's what she likes most about Eliot: he understands sentiment better than any of the others, even Sophie. He understands that Parker's never had someone she can look up to like she can look up to Nate. He understands that Nate needs to be needed. He understands that Nate has lost a son and Parker has lost a brother and they both blame themselves.

"I get it," he says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. He smiles, looking a little queasy. "Nate's a good guy."

"Yes," she says thoughtfully. "Yes, he is."

* * *

"Do you remember what you said to me during our first job together?"

Nate finishes pouring her a bowl of Count Chocula and pushes it over for her to pour the milk on top. He's wearing PJs—the same ones Sophie once showed to Parker—and his whole body's relaxed, the way it never is when they're on the job. Parker thinks that evenings like this are the only times Nate's brain isn't working at light speed.

"I said a lot of things. Care to be more specific?" He pulls an empty bowl over to him and pours in the cereal.

She pours the milk on top. They each grab a spoon then carry their bowls over to the couch. She sits cross-legged, the bowl on her lap, and he slouches, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"You told me to count the haircuts," she says. "That's how you tell how many guys are in a room."

"So?"

She's looking down at her cereal, but she can feel his gaze on her face, steady and non-judgmental. "So, I wasn't used to people actually trying to teach me. It was nice."

He takes a bite, chews noisily. After a moment she follows his lead.

"When I was a kid, some of my teachers thought I was a bit…slow," Nate says after a while.

"How could anyone be that stupid? You're the smartest guy I know."

His lips quirk in acknowledgment of the compliment, but his face stays serious. "I didn't interact much with the other kids or the teachers. I'd sit in the back, just watching. Observing. I already knew everything the teachers had to say, and it was so much more interesting to learn about people."

"You're still that way," Parker says. She huffs, annoyed with herself. "I'm not good at observing people."

"It's a skill you can develop over time." He waves his hand as if to say that understanding people doesn't really matter. "Tell me, what's Hardison's biggest weakness on the job?"

She collects three marshmallows on her spoon and drops them into Nate's bowl. Nate's got a sweet tooth. "He's always trying to show off, which makes him a bad grifter. When he has to do something like break into a safe, his insecurities surface and there's a good chance he'll screw up."

Nate nods. "What about Sophie?"

She bites her lip. "She's desperate for affirmation. I guess she's like Hardison that way. It makes her think too much about herself, not enough about the team."

"Eliot?"

That one's harder. "He's too violent?"

Nate shakes his head, smiling a little. "That's a façade." At her blank look, he elaborates, "It's an act he puts on to make people underestimate him. Eliot's real weakness on the job is that he's overprotective—it's too easy for him to lose sight of the con when one of his people is threatened."

Parker finishes her cereal and lifts the bowl to her lips, taking a deep gulp of milk.

"What about me?" Nate says. "What's my greatest weakness?"

She thinks for a long time. "I don't know."

Nate laughs.

"What?" she says.

"You're the only one on the team who wouldn't have said, 'You're a drunk.'"

She hesitates, searching for the right words to say what she wants to say. Finally, she settles on, "Drunk or not, I trust you. On the job and off." She says it to her empty bowl, though, unable to meet his eyes.

"When I was first getting into the insurance game, my greatest weakness was that I wasn't a natural leader," he says. "On my own, I could outsmart anyone. Make me work with others, and I stuttered, mismanaged people."

Parker finds herself staring at him. "What changed?"

Nate puts his bowl on the coffee table and meets her eyes. "I practiced. It took me years, but I practiced, until I felt comfortable being the center of attention, until I knew how to manipulate the people who were on my side as well as the people I thought of as enemies." He leans back on the couch and clasps his hands. "Now, what's your greatest weakness?"

"We talked about this already. I don't relate well to people."

"You've gotten better, though," he points out. "You understand the members of our team just fine."

"I guess?" she says uncertainly.

"So tell me," Nate says, "what do you and I have in common that our three teammates don't?"

She drags her spoon through the dregs of her milk, thinking. She doesn't know.

"You and I can learn to overcome our greatest weaknesses," he tells her gently. "They're learned behaviors. I was too much of a loner as a child, and that made me have trouble interacting with other people. Your childhood scarred you in a number of ways, but they're scars that can heal, at least a bit, with time. The others' weaknesses, on the other hand, are part of their nature. They'll be that way forever."

"So what does that mean?"

"It means that I think you have the potential to be a terrific mastermind."

Parker stares at him.

He smiles. "Parker, you're brilliant. You're already one of the most talented thieves I've ever seen. You might be a bit unorthodox in your interactions with people, but they love you anyway. And, most importantly, you ask questions. You want to learn how to do every part of the job, from combat to planning. You're the only one on the team who does. You have so much more potential than you realize."

"So," she says slowly, "you want me to form my own team?"

"No. I want you to be my protégé."

She stares at him some more. She thinks about her plans for this dinner—which had tentatively involved trying to find out whether Nate could possibly have feelings for her—and decides that maybe there are different kinds of love, and maybe some of them are better than the romantic kind. Maybe this is what it feels like to have a family.

"I set Hardison and Sophie up on a blind date together," she blurts, cringing at what she's now fairly certain was a bad decision. "They're there now."

Nate eyes her for a moment. Then he chuckles. "Okay, so we still need to work on your people skills."

She relaxes. When he gets up to rinse the dishes, she helps.

* * *

Eliot is cooking steaks and Nate is watching a football game when Hardison and Sophie arrive together. At first, Parker thinks that maybe her plan worked. Then Hardison gives her a look, his eyes filled with emotions she can't identify, and stomps over to the TV to join Nate. Sophie points a shaking finger at Parker and says, "Don't talk to me right now."

Parker fills a glass with water, snags a couple of pieces of the carrot Eliot's just chopped, and wanders over to the couch to sit next to Nate, on the opposite side from Hardison. She hands Nate a piece of carrot.

"I think Hardison and Sophie are mad," she says, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Eliot snorts. Hardison groans.

Sophie says, "There's something wrong with you."

Nate smiles and munches on the carrot. "You're learning."


End file.
